


Love is Blooming (The Flowers look Pretty on You)

by moonjjh



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, Crying, Excessive discription of flowers, Flower Crowns, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, In detail descriptions of characters, Jaemin and Donghyuk work at a flower shop, Jocks and Flowerboys, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mark is Clueless and in love, Metaphorical Drowning, Multi, Mutual Pining, Overprotective Ten, Pining, Romance, Savage Donghyuk, Sharing Clothes, Sharing Umbrellas, Soft Jaemin, mark and jeno are BASKETBALL jocks, so is Jaemin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonjjh/pseuds/moonjjh
Summary: "i can't believe you like lee minhyung of all people," donghyuk says, carrying heavy (as he says) ceramic pots of yellow roses out of the backroom and into the limelight of the shops storefront."it's not like i can help who i like," jaemin pouts, looking up from his tedious but relaxing job of putting together flower crowns. "hell, if i could, i would've chosen lee jeno."donghyuk snorts and puts the ceramic pots down, adding them to their potted collection of colored roses."it's not like he's any better."or..jaemin's a florist that wants to drown the breathtakingly handsome jock in petunias.





	1. 1. A Hot Lifeguard

**Author's Note:**

> hello~
> 
> okay, yes ik that I have not finished ny other story at all, but I really wanted to get the start of this out. I really like the lightheartedness of the story and I want to see how this one goes.
> 
> Hope you enjoy~~

jaemin is drowning.

he's not drowning in water or any other substance that uses both gravity and his weight against him to pull him into the depths of wherever, but a more emotionally draining drown, one that he should stop. well, at least everyone tells him he should stop, or that he'll get badly hurt and brokenhearted. that jaemin should have crushes and fall in love like a normal human being, rather than let his head take the reigns instead of his heart and make jaemin come to the conclusion that yes, when you like someone, the chance of them actually liking you back is slim, and the chances of being a forever alone is about 205%.

jaemin takes everyone's advice to heart--though he still doesn't use it-- and appreciates it, but he knows it's better said than actually done. knows that, if he does take their advice, he would be still suffering heartache in the end because jaemin’s heart just doesn't quit when it needs to and jaemins head is practically yelling at him that falling for this boy is the best bad idea he's ever had.

jaemin knows that it’s way harder to save yourself from drowning when you don't know how to swim.

and on the contrary and surprise from his peers, jaemin lives by that motto (that he really just made up, so he thinks he deserves several pats on the back) and actually takes his sayings to heart. you can't save yourself from drowning if you don't know how to swim, jaemin always says. which is why you need a hot lifeguard to save you. (jaemin thinks he also deserves a pat on the back for that too.)

jaemin’s real tactic is to drown so deep into the boy that the boy in question is forced to save him, which kinda makes him his lifegaurd. a hot guy who sits and lounges in his high lifeguard chair, watching from afar as jaemin drowns and drowns and drowns, until he has to finally save him to avoid being fired. in jaemin’s case, it's a basketball jock, a hot guy that dribbles balls and runs around the court, who sits and cools down on the bench during practice, who currently has no idea jaemin is even drowning.

it all leads back to his current predicament, the drowning situation, that his friends think is out of hand. and really, really jaemin understands their concern, but he has the situation under total control. and truly, it may be jaemin’s first actual situation in which he's putting his motto to test, so even if he has it under control, there's no guarantee that the so called lifeguard will even save him.

so jaemin takes everything with a grain of salt, which also means he takes no real gain from his friend's worries. but this finds him at their usual table, seated in weird seating, with each of his friends (parents, jaemin wants to say. they keep acting like it) going over the pros and cons of the situation and jaemins thought process. of course, jaemin retaliated, because in all honesty, jaemin was really a trial and error sort of guy.

 

“i still don't understand why you compare yourself having a crush to yourself drowning,” yuta says, grimacing into his iced coffee.

it's probably too bitter or too sweet, since yuta can't really handle either. it proves to be too bitter though, especially so when jaemin witnesses yuta ripping open 5 packets of sugar all at once and pouring them into his coffee.

“i mean, it sounds morbid.”

donghyuk snorts around his own straw, looking down into the table. “that's just what jaemin is, though,” he takes another sip from his straw. “i’m pretty sure he jokes about both his death and mine every other day.”

“i do not!”

“you do, to!”

“i don't!”

“but you do!”

“for fucks sake, shut up!”

its yuta who yells, startling both sicheng and chenle who'd been secretly eating yuta’s muffin from the corner. both their expressions turn to those of innocence even though yuta pays them no mind, going back to his coffee and stirring the contents so the sugar at the bottom of the cup mixes in well. the bitterness of his coffee might have gone to his head.

“but going back to the problem at hand,” ten starts, finally speaking from his spot at the middle of the table, looking dwarfed in between sicheng and yuta. “you're saying you have a crush on one of the sophomore jocks?”

jaemin nods his head once, twice. “yes, that's exactly what i’m saying.”

“i don't approve.”

jaemin whines and looks at his hyung with the biggest puppy eyes he could muster, which wasn't hard, jaemin had-- what he thought were-- unnaturally large eyes.

“but why not? i swear, it's just a little crush,” jaemin states, trying to put on his most convincing voice ever. “it'll go away in like..a few days.”

“you mean a few months to a year? jaemin, I've known you since you were four, so stop telling me bullshit,” ten steals some of yutas muffin from sicheng and pops it into his mouth. it's a poppyseed muffin and jaemin knows that ten hates them, but he says nothing. “plus, all the ‘jocks’ on the basketball team are horrible people. i just want the best for you.”

“...but aren't you dating that one tall kid from the team? johnny?” chenle says, swiping a gulp from his bottle of banana milk. “plus, i’m friends with jisung. he's pretty cool.”

“friends?” donghyuk snorts once again, louder this time, looking at chenle mischievously. “i saw him kiss you under the stairwell and i know you guys have a date friday night.”

“you looked through my phone!” chenle accuses.

“you looked through mine!” donghyuk shouts back.

“SHUT UP!”

both chenle and donghyuk halt their words at yuta’s shout, going back to sipping their coffee, or in chenle’s case, eating yutas muffin.

ten’s in the middle of spitting out the piece of muffin he had in his mouth into a napkin, and the shout almost makes him spit it onto the table. sicheng doesn't look surprised at yuta's yell, but he's probably as used to it as jaemin is, so jaemin isn't fazed by it. the pretty boy himself was just wondering how bitter yuta’s coffee really was.

“okay, so maybe it isn't the fact that they're bad people,” ten tries to start again. his face is still scrunched from eating the poppyseed muffin that he hastily spit out of his mouth, even after he'd downed all of his coffee to rid himself of the displeasing taste. jaemin didn't really understand his hyungs taste buds at all, because who finds poppyseed muffins disgusting and black coffee delicious?

“what i’m saying is, I just think they are a little too rowdy for you. they're partiers, the ones who disrupt the class when you're really trying to write notes for that one history essay that's due.”

donghyuk snorts. again, jaemin thinks. why does he keep snorting? was he a pig? but the boy looks up from his coffee to look at ten. “but you can handle them and jaemin can't? remember, it's jaemin we're talking about.”

jaemin makes an affronted noise in the back of his throat at the statement and leans back in his chair, pout clear as day on his face. “what's that supposed to mean?”

donghyuk smiles and raises his hands in the air as an innocent, ‘let me explain first’ gesture. he scoots his chair back before he says anything, and the metal scratching against tile makes a loud screeching sound resonate throughout the whole cafe. donghyuk leans back.

“i didn't mean it in a bad way, it's just we're both the crazy ones here. I, mr. savage, and you, mr. dramatic,” donghyuk smirks, and jaemin can't even complain about how true the names were. it was always donghyuk and him pulling pranks and making jokes, causing and being nuisances to everyone around them for fun. hell, jaemin had never even seen the basketball team throwing a party, let alone going to one.

“trust me when i say this, but me and jaemin are far worst than the basketball team combined.” donghyuk concludes, and goes back to sipping on his--seemingly perfect in bitterness and sweetness-- ice coffee, short speech like input over. jaemin can hear yuta’s correction of “jaemin and i” through the loud clunks of the ice as he shakes his cup to mix in milk.

chenle and sicheng nod, agreeing with donghyuk’s statements quietly. they we're probably going over all the times the two had made their lives something akin to a living hell with their pranks and their fun, and tens statements seemed to be becoming more and more false everytime chenle spoke up.

“me and jisung-”

“jisung and i,” yuta corrects with an exasperated look on his face. he's looking for something, checking their plates and under stacked napkins. he's probably looking for his muffin, because sicheng looks away towards the window and chenle does nothing but let yuta keep looking. “you kids and your horrible grammar rules.”

  
“okay, fine,” chenle rolls his eyes. “jisung and i are together a lot nowadays, for projects of course.” donghyuk scoffs--which is finally something different than his insistent snorting--but let's chenle continue speaking. “he’s never once mentioned a party or anything like that, and that the team is actually pretty laid back. jisungie is actually really quiet himself.”

“jisungie~” donghyuk mocks, making the pitch in his voice higher and watching as chenle’s eyes darken.

“taeil-hyung, i rea-”

“YAHH!”

everyone is actually shocked at donghyuk’s yell, even yuta, who’s recovering by wiping down the table from the coffee he'd spilled earlier. ten looks kind of put out that all his suggestions that he'd made about staying away from the basketball team seem to be getting jaemin closer and closer to wanting an actual lifeguard. jaemin’s a little shocked but not as much as he really wants to be, because he's already sipped the tea from the taeil and donghyuk situation. he was there, of course.

and sicheng, well, sicheng was in the cafe line again buying yuta another muffin.

\--

“okay, not that i’m not enjoying this little gathering we have here, because really, it's swell,” donghyuk says as he checks his watch. “but mr. dramatic and i have a shift that we are currently seven minutes late to.”

“that's today? i thought we had three days off?” donghyuk looks at him with a deadpan expression, sipping on the last of his coffee before aiming the cup for the trashcan a few feet away and tossing it. he misses, and ice splatters all over the floor when it falls, yet no one knows it's him. the bastard always gets away with something.

“i don’t understand why you hate the flower shop so much,” he says, and jaemin can hear him mentally cackling from across the table. “you've literally been working there for a year and a half.”

“that place makes me sad, with all of it's pretty flowers and shit.” the waitress starts blaming the spilled ice on one of the college students a few seats away. “i wanna be a flower now, maybe my lifeguard will notice me.”

“tell me, jaemin. in what way would whoever you're crushing on notice you if you were a flower?” yuta scoffed, snatching his (new) muffin from sicheng and taking a possessive bite. “sicheng, i asked for a chocolate chip muffin, the hell is this?”

sicheng shrugs, “the banana one looked left out.” of course it was, because really, who goes to the coffee shop to order nothing but a banana muffin? no one apparently, no one but sicheng from the kindness of his heart. it's ironic that sicheng actually hates banana himself.

“okay, but back to jaemin,” ten is leaned back in the booth and he looks impossibly small, the cushions practically drawing him in. jaemin wants to comment, but he knows that he practically looks the same. he's not exactly fond of his height or weight. he's way too skinny in all places, and he's tall, but not too tall. just tall enough where his arms didn't add up well in comparison to the rest of his body.

“I'm worried that someday you will drown yourself.”

“and who’s to say that i’m not already planning it?”

“why can't you just be like a normal teenager? y’know, the ones who solve their problems through gossiping on twitter about how their favs didn't like their new post?” basically, why didn't jaemin solve his problems the same way ten did.

jaemin sighs and gets up as donghyuk does, sparing the poor college student a sympathetic glance. ten was always too stressed about the simplest things, why couldn't he just trust that jaemin had this under control?

“that too basic, hyung, and way too mainstream. i’m good with drowning.”

jaemin could hear ten’s exasperated sigh and yuta’s groan of distaste for his banana muffin even after he and donghyuk walked out of the cafe.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. inhale, exhale, breathe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jaemin and mark official meet. donghyuk is there too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do I even say? i posted this story in september last year, so it's been quite a while. but i've had half of this chapter sitting in my drafts and i'm finally getting back into this story and all my others! there's been so many markmin moments lately and i've been inspired and i've been writing again and it's spring break!! there isn't a better time i could update lolol
> 
> i'm working on It Begins and Ends for those who have read that, so hang on tight! that'll be updated soon and sorry for the wait. i worked hard on this chapter and even though i don't really like it, i hope you guys do♡

jaemin and donghyuk are exactly seventeen (17) minutes late to work.

 

taeil is working overtime, tending to a usual customer they have that's behind the counter. he looks stressed and tired and there's this vein in his neck that looks like its about to burst any minute now, which usually means that taeil is pissed.

 

jaemin isn’t surprised. neither is donghyuk, apparently. they do this way too often, coming to work late, and everytime it just so happens to be on the day that taeil is working. maybe donghyuk plans it out and somehow has a copy of taeil’s schedule. maybe they’re just lucky that kun keeps calling off, resulting in taeil working extra days. whatever it is, jaemin is truly thankful. he doesn’t know what he would do if he was in taeil’s position, but he thinks that he’d maybe quit. or get donghyuk fired (jaemin doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he, too, would be fired), which seemed like a better option.

 

donghyuk walks in first, grimey hands making fading prints on the stores glass doors, and starts whistling, a tune that jaemin knows too well. it’s a christmas carol that jaemin’s heard too many times that he’d forgotten the name of (however that's possible) and donghyuk whistles it the moment the door opens. it catches taeil’s attention, and the fake smile he presented to the customer quickly falls at the sight of donghyuk. donghyuk just smiles at the older boy in a way that could only be considered by In Love  and jaemin wholeheartedly wonders how he does it.

 

there is no possible way in jaemin’s lifetime that he could ever, ever just be in perfect eye contact with his human of preference (jaemin thinks admitting to having a “crush” sounds unimportant) and just smile, flawlessly. well, maybe not _flawlessly_ , because donghyuk is everything but flawless. he’s no doubt pretty--even if jaemin had to be sat on for a total of 28 minutes to admit that one--but donghyuk isn’t _god,_ and jaemin doesn’t see how it’s possible to not melt into the floor on sight of said very cherished human.

 

“donghyuk,” taeil grits though his teeth, not in an angry way, but really just to show the younger boy that getting to work now twenty minutes late was weighing on him. the customer, after being helped, acknowledges that maybe it's time to take his leave and grips the what looks to be a ten pound vase of potted orange chrysanthemums in his hands, waddling with short steps towards the door. taeil’s too busy glaring at donghyuk to notice and donghyuk is sheepishly looking back, tying an apron around his waist, so jaemin takes it as his opportunity to wish the man a good day. the man barely takes a glance at jaemin before almost tripping and falling, and it takes jaemin all the force in his body to not laugh.

 

“my shift ended thirty minutes ago,” taeil starts once the shop is empty. “you guys were supposed to he here _thirty minutes ago._ ”

 

donghyuk raises an eyebrow and looks down at his watch while jaemin grabs a pink apron from the hooks, tying it around his waist expertly. “actually, since we haven’t officially started our shift, we are only 24 minutes late.”

 

taeil rolls his eyes and pushes donghyuk gently by the shoulders behind the counter and to the register, making him take the cashier position he knows the younger boy hates. “yeah, but the both of you seem to think that the rule that states you need to he here ten minutes beforehand doesn’t exist. if yixing were here the both of you would be fired.”

 

jaemin, in all honesty, does not care at all of the conversation. he knows with donghyuk being the way he is would reply with answers that he knew taeil would respond to, and probably end up keeping the poor boy here, unknowingly against his will, for the rest of his own shift. there’s really no point in listening to their back and forth conversation, so he goes to the back into the connected greenhouse.

 

the greenhouse could easily be called home. it’s where all of jaemin’s babies live (he really does hate taking care of them, but he could spend all the time in the world just looking) and the sun filters in through the netted roof just enough that its warm but not burning. it makes jaemin feel at peace, just standing in it, away from donghyuk or taeil or anyone who really has a voice and a mouth and uses it in jaemin’s presence. and jaemin is not at all hating or annoyed, but sometimes he needs quiet and to just hear his own voice and thoughts.

 

flowers make him think, and right now his mind is on what he hopes will soon be his lifeguard.

 

the boy is anything but what jaemin expected his ideal type to be. jaemin really thought he would fall for someone who was over six feet tall with dark hair and eyes and muscles that looked like they could fling jaemin an unknown distance into the sky. but all jaemin knows now is that walking into the locker room after school and coming in contact with the whole basketball team really fucked up his views on what he expects in life. because lifeguard boy (jaemin hates that he has no idea what his name is) is definitely _not_ over six feet tall, and actually might be just an inch or two taller than jaemin himself. he’s not dark and handsome but really bright and a weird mix of cute-handsome and if jaemin has to be completely and utterly honest with himself, the boy looked like mickey mouse on first thought.

 

he really doesn’t know where that came from. but the boy is lean and normal height and cute-handsome and generally looks just like a regular highschool boy yet jaemin feels like he just landed face first in an endless body of water. its deep and jaemin has no idea where to go or how to get there. he’s tired at the thought of swimming.

 

the wind blows through the netted greenhouse and the potted azaleas shake with the wind. jaemin feels like they are disagreeing with him, and he narrows his eyes at the plant. he has half a mind to drown them in water, maybe to even give them a clue to how he feels, but they would probably soak up the water and be perfectly fine. god should have really made jaemin a flower.

 

but flowers don’t speak and can’t love and can’t be infatuated with a random boy that they don’t at all know. and jaemin feels stupid, so stupid, because he really just thought of drowning one of his babies that are not even human and probably don’t have emotions. _great, i’m going crazy,_ he thinks.

 

jaemin feels uncharastically hopeless, and nothing has really even happened yet.

 

\--

 

“how was your midlife crisis?” donghyuk asks as jaemin walks back into the store. taeil is gone, surprisingly, but donghyuk has half of taeil’s iced tea that he’d been drinking so jaemin guesses that they left on a good note.

 

“pretty good,” jaemin answers. “very crisis-y. what happened out here?”

 

donghyuk shrugs and shakes the cup in his hand, and the ice in the cup clashes with other ice and the sound is really unnecessary. “same ol’, same ol’. just hyung with the same baseless guilt and shame. ugh, he’s really so impossible.”

 

jaemin sometimes wishes he didn’t get it, like everyone else doesn’t, but donghyuk is unfortunately his best friend and he gets it as if it was his own problem. donghyuk likes taeil, and god blessed him so much that taeil likes him back. but if there's god then there's satan, and taeil refuses to further acknowledge anymore feelings because donghyuk is a minor and, as the older boy put it, “everything just seems off.”

 

“i’m going to be legal in a few months anyways,” donghyuk continues, and jaemin feels an itch in his finger to poke him in between his furrowed brows. “it’s not like i want to do anything other than hang out with him anyways. adults always have to be so cautious.”

 

jaemin doesn’t tell him that taeil isn’t being cautious because he’s an adult, because taeil really doesn’t like feeling older than he already is. taeil, in truth, is only cautious because of what other people would think. jaemin isn't 24, but he is seventeen, and if he had interest in a ten year old--wait, that's weird, and totally different than what taeil’s feeling. or maybe it’s exactly what taeil’s feeling.  

 

it’s another quiet fifty minutes before the little bell at the door rings, signaling a customer finally. donghyuk is on break after doing nothing, _lazy,_ jaemin thinks, and he himself had been half dozing off on the counter, hand-picked daisy crushed between his fingertips. it takes jaemin a total of five seconds to look up and then his mind freezes, blanks, and his brain is a total pile of decomposed mush in the hollow ball of space in what he calls his head.

 

lifeguard basketball player boy has never bought flowers from their shop before, but here he is, all smooth flesh and long bones.

 

they haven’t made eye contact--thank god-- but jaemin already feels like he is on fire. he’s going to combust, explode, and his only adequate body parts will be all over the store and lifeguard will be disgusted and upset over the bad customer service. than donghyuk will come from the back, look around, put two and two together, and promptly laugh his ass off.

 

jaemin can already see it now. he hopes he lands in the roses.

 

lifeguard/basketball boy is looking around the shop and even though this is dangerous, so, so dangerous, jaemin can’t take his eyes off him. how can a boy be so perfect? how can a boy that seems so _normal_ be the one to literally push the air out of his lungs? the worst part is: jaemin has no idea who he is, but the feeling of being close enough that the boy can see him and hear him and maybe even smell him has jaemin reeling. the feeling is weird, and its dragging him deeper and deeper into himself and he feels like he might never breathe normally again.

 

and then the boy looks at him and it’s like their eyes touch and jaemin just knows he looks gross and awkward and probably really creepy with his stares, but lifeguard jock _smiles_ and jaemin chokes. for real.

 

he’s coughing, that’s as much as he knows, and his eyes are getting watery but other than that he has no idea what’s going on and can’t erase the picture from his mind. it’s ingrained there, carved into stone, and its the only thing jaemin can see. if this is the last thing he remembers before he chokes to death, jaemun certainly doesn’t mind. hopefully he turns into a ghost so he can watch lifeguard jock from afar and haunt donghyuk into the next millennium. or maybe he can speed up donghyuk’s death somehow, because jaemin really doesn’t want to be a lonely ghost.

 

jaemin doesn’t even register the hand hitting his back until it hurts, and jaemin’s eyes clear until they see donghyuk looking at him. jaemin can sed it in his eyes, donghyuk knows, and not for basketball jock being in the room donghyuk would have probably left him for dead. the bastard.

 

“are you okay?” it’s not donghyuk speaking. it’s lifeguard basketball jock or whatever his name is, looking at him with eyes that jaemin is now taking his time to focus on. the boys face is not the best face in the world or one that jaemin had seen himself falling for a few years back, but looking at the boy now, jaemin sees perfection. his eyebrows are high, higher than jaemin’s grade point average, and his jaw is sharp and his face is chiseled but soft at the same time and jaemin imagines kissing the hollow of the boys cheek for a second and then the choking feeling is back and then-

 

and then donghyuk elbows him in his side. hard.

 

“he’s fine, mark,” donghyuk answers for him. the boy, _his name is mark_ , smiles and nods a little unsurely, and his eyes are trained on jaemin and jaemin for some reason is looking back and _oh god this is eye contact._ jaemin is actually looking mark--mark is a really nice name-- and mark is looking back and smiling and jaemin feels compelled to smile back, so he does. maybe it looks more like a grimace but jaemin can’t tell, but mark’s smile is widening and jaemin wants to stare at mark smiling forever. he wonders if mark feels like staring at jaemin’s smile forever too, but that is fatal territory and really something jaemin should not ever think about until anything really gets to that _point._

 

they look like fools, smiling to each other, looking at each other. donghyuk is the only witness to how gross it really is. “soo,” he starts, and he drags on the ‘o’ to make it seem conversational but really looking on at the looks that were being given is disturbing. mark has just seen jaemin, for fucks sake. this isn’t how you look at someone that you have never met before. “what brings you to my humble home of flowers?”

 

mark breaks eye contact and jaemin breathes in for a quick second, catching the breath he didn’t realize he lost. “I..uh, had to get some flowers for yukhei. he’s trying to ask jungwoo out to prom two months early, but said he couldn’t be caught being here.”

 

donghyuk scoffs and leans his elbows on the countertop, glancing at the crushed daisy next to him. “it’s been months since yukhei’s been trying to ask that boy out. i mean, jungwoo is bound to say yes, i’ve never seen two people not together so in love.”

 

jaemin has no idea who they are talking about. he’s never thought that donghyuk had other friends.

 

mark nods and glancing quickly at jaemin with kind eyes. “yeah, but who’s this?” and then mark is pointing with a very nice looking finger at jaemin and the boy wonders why someone so perfect would want to know who he is.

 

donghyuk lights up, like a christmas tree almost, or like the signs of stores when it dark, and drags jaemin by his limp arm into standing impossibly close next to him and too close in front of mark that's actually comfortable. here jaemin can see the pores in his nose and the gentle rise of his lips and how his eyes seem to be sparkling, like two diamonds in the center of all that is glittering and is actual gold. jaemin wonders how a face can look expensive.

 

“ _this,”_ donghyuk starts, an amusing but also very suspicious look on his face. “is my amazing best friend na jaemin, who, as you can see, if very pretty, smart, and single! he has a 3.9 GPA, and honestly is the cutest little thing you will ever meet.”

 

mark looks flustered, and very adorable that way. jaemin _is_ flustered, and is 100% sure that he is going to kill donghyuk before the day is over.

 

mark scratches his neck and extends his other hand, and there's a slight blush on his face that makes jaemin wonder what his own looks like. “i’m mark lee,” he starts as jaemin takes his hand. his palm is smaller than jaemins but his hand is a bit wider and fingers definitely longer. and they are also firm and a bit rough, contrasting with the soft skin of jaemin’s own. “i’m from canada, i also have a 3.9 GPA, i guess i’m handsome and i’m also pretty single.”

 

and then there's more eye contact. jaemin knows there’s no point in breathing when mark is going to continually take his breath away.

 

donghyuk interrupts them for a second time, and jaemin is grateful for the time to inhale but also annoyed because eye contact with mark is nice. he feels like he’s looking into mark’s soul and mark is looking into his, and it sounds scary, but jaemin just feels not at peace, but excited, and he feels butterflies. this is probably what donghyuk feels everyday with taeil. excited, panicky, with stomach butterflies, but still also really content.

 

mark leaves after he orders some random flowers that happened to look nice in the corner, and as he holds the bouquet and walks out the door, he smiles brightly at jaemin and jaemin smiles back automatically. it’s a real smile, too, not a annoyed-and-tired-taeil-with-a-customer smile, and jaemin is smiling all the while he watches him go. he can feel himself breathing.

 

_his name is mark. and he is handsome and pretty single._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really wanted to get the meeting out of the way!! there'll be more dialong and feelings and more everything in the next chapter
> 
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!  
> follow me:
> 
> tumblr: @jaeminsai  
> twitter: @jaeminsai  
> jaemin blog: @jajajaemins
> 
> p.s. should I get a curiouscat?? i'll only really get it if any of you want to ask me any questions, i don't really mind.  
> (♡)-michelle-

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @jaeminsai if you have any questions or just want to get to know me!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this, because I update based on your feedback! 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are greatly appreciated! Hopefully I'll update this story soon!


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